Mistakes in attempting to advocate Freedom

Miscellaneous General
1

Hi Folks,

Here are two mistakes I’ve made when attempting to teach friends about Austrian Economics, freedom, ect….

  1. This is a mistake I, and many of my anarchist friends, have made. The Lesson is, you’re not going to teach someone an entire centuries worth of economic thought and literature over a casual dinner conversation.

Many of us have taken the time to read and educate ourselves on a great deal of things Austrian related. To us, various subjects and topics are all connected, intertwined, and related to each other. It’s a fallacy however to assume that your ideological opponents will see the same connections as you do. Indeed if we study modern liberalism and conservatism it should be quiet obvious to us that these other methods of thought do not connect the dots in their own ideological reasoning at all. Why would we expect them to see the correlations in ours?

That point considered, we often become excited in our conversations and jump around from point to point. To our opponent we may seem overwhelming, confusing, and inconsistent(even though we may be entirely consistent) as they do not understand things as we do.

Many of us feel compelled to explode our friend’s fallacies in their face. Don’t do it. Practice prudence and restraint. Many Austrian types are very passionate in what they believe, and for good reason. We’ve already been through the painful and time consuming process of admitting and learning about reality. It very much is the blue pill red pill anology from The Matrix. Our passion however will often dangerously come out in our method of speech. This is one way a discussion escalates into an argument. We must practice restraint and not become too aggressive.

Back to the original point, it’s totally naïve of us to assume that we will somehow shove 100 years of economic thought and literature down the throats of our fellow friends, over the course of a simple conversation. Yet we often expect this result. With each statement we make we expect our opponents miraculously wake up in epiphany recognizing the evils of their ways! For some reason however these epiphanies never occur and playing this dangerously aggressive game can destroy great relationships. In our own disappointment to convince we push even further, harder, and become ever more aggressive. You must guard against this practice, you will never turn friends and family onto what you have discovered by being aggressive.

What’s the solution? The best thing to do is for your opponents to invest the same amount of time that you have in reading and studying.

For example, I have to constantly control myself in political conversations on when and I interject a point. I have found that very cleverly and lightly introducing various reasoned responses during a conversation and citing an economist or two will often times ignite interest. Taking a more casual and less aggressive approach I have gotten many of my ideologically opposed friends to read Hazlitt and some are even now reading Mises and Rand. The trick here is to encourage people to do their own research, and give them the chance to come to their own conclusions. I have far more faith in Mises’s ability to convince someone over my own.

What we need to do is give them the tools to learn on their own. Individuals over the course of their life will identify how they learn best; all you need to do is provide them the material and give them positive encouragement. Find a way to spark their interest.

  1. My second mistake here is a method of argument that Molyneux has been advocating for some time. I have never been a big fan of him but he has often brought up interesting ideas on how to handle debate and conflict. One of his methods is “The-Gun-In-The-Room” method. For me this method has systematically failed and nearly always ended up in either a stalemate (Agree to disagree) or in extreme agitation between both parties.

The premise of this method is built upon emotion, and as such is destined to incite an emotional response. It also fails to employ an entire school of reasoning, Austrian Economics, which can tell us in detail why some methods of economic policy are preferred to others. Ethics and morals do not teach us about comparative advantage, economic calculation, and the pros of a complex division of labor.

In short I have to strongly disagree with Molyneux on this method. It has failed me many times, and I have seen it fail many times for my anarchist friends as well. The arguments nearly always end up in some form of name-calling.

Arguments that are grounded in emotion, call for emotional responses. Stay level headed and employ reason. Be careful not to get cocky, or arrogant however when employing your reasoning.

If you already feel strongly compelled into freedom due to moral and ethical reasons I beg of you to take the bar even higher and learn about all of the wonderful economic tools that are at your disposal. These tools can provide reasonable points of interest for your ideological opposed friends.

In short

  1. Don’t expect to shove 100 years’ worth of economic thought down your friend’s throat in a short period of time. Provide them with the tools necessary and encourage them in a positive light to learn on their own. Never try to compel them.
  2. The “Gun in the room” method is built upon emotion, and begs for emotional responses. Don’t use it; go for something more grounded in logic or reason. Logic and reason can keep you neutral and minimize the amount of emotion drawn from your arguments.

That’s just my 2c.

2

Great post. I’ve seen the video of Molyneux explaining the “Gun in the Room” method, but I really like your first point. Whenever I’m arguing with people who haven’t done as much research into their opinions as they think they’ve done, I end up switching back and forth between different subjects. A debate on the War on Drugs can lead to explanation how inflation by the Federal Reserve acts as a hidden tax, and then they’re overwhelmed and confused at everything. Making sure to stick to one topic is important, and also is giving people a list of names to read and watch. I love Milton Friedman. Something about his smooth articulation makes people care about what he’s saying. I tell them to watch videos on him on YouTube (after writing down his name for them - not simply say his name out loud), and they’re much more willing to do that than pick up a book.

3

I must agree. While I disagree on many of Friedman’s economic positions he was outstanding in his ability to verbally present his argument. If only I could pick up that skill…

4

I was impressed by Friedman in The Incredible Bread Machine. Not seen him in anything else. Any particular recommendations?

5

I can’t recommend any particular text, but if you want to see more of his views orally articulated, I would just watch some of his interviews on YouTube.

For ease: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=milton+friedman&aq=0

His interview with Phil Donahue is classic. It makes me feel calm when he talks.

6

filc, thanks for the advice.

On your first point, you are saying find a way to spark their interest, then hand them Hazlitt or encourage them to come here. I think that’s very good advice, but very difficult to do. I have not had much success trying to interest people in economics. I am probably guilty of trying to explode all their fallacies in their face, and jumping around so as to become overwhelming. When you’ve said something controversial, it’s difficult to pick a point to stop answering their questions/objections with 30-second explanations and say ‘here, read this, teach yourself’.

I guess the value I see in using ethical arguments is that I figure it’s more likely to spark interest. Some people just don’t care that we could all be so much richer with less or no government. Unintelligent people, especially, also don’t feel capable of learning enough economics to be confident of supporting one political system over another. “How do I know the Austrians are right and the Keynesians are wrong?” (Difficult to answer this without shoving 100 years of economic thought down their throats!)

I try to help these people see inconsistencies in their existing ethical views. “I am against theft and slavery, so shouldn’t I be against government?”, “I favor equality under the law, so shouldn’t I be against government?”, etc. Maybe this will spark interest, in finding out how things might work without government, and that will lead to Ron Paul, Murray Rothbard et al. I don’t know. I do try not to harp on about ethics though (you are right, relationships can be damaged); once they know that I oppose government primarily for ethical reasons, I don’t bring it up again usually (or at least try not to). From then on, it’s logic and reason only.

I do admit there is a problem with this method. I have been accused of “believing in libertarian economics”, i.e. like AE is a branch of economic thought created to support a political system, like Marxism for communism. That’s another thing that can’t be refuted without shoving 100 years of economic thought down their throats!